I know we need to conserve water and such but why? Doesn’t it eventually flow back into the ground or evaporated and rained back down regardless of how it’s consumed, so it’s a cycle? Do we lose a bit per cycle?
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When we take excess water from a place, the ground can dry up. Dry ground isn’t as good at absorbing water, causing any new water to just run right off. It can create a negative feedback loop.
Another solution is to compost waste instead of mixing everuthing that has to go to a treatment plant, thereby making municiple water more efficient.
> I know we need to conserve water and such but why?
Except we don’t. It’s all lies.
Water is infinitely renewable, and your personal use is completely insignificant.
Big water users are agriculture, because in most of the world they pay nothing or ridiculously low rates for water, compared to what people in cities are paying. So not only they use too much water then blame others, they often just plain waste it.
Industry is another big user, but unlike agriculture it usually has to pay.
The whole “water conservation” is basically bullshit by big agriculture. [Like in California it takes about 13 litres of water to produce 1 almond](https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html). And the big agriculture is sure as hell not paying the same rates as you do.
And even in places without natural fresh water, water desalination is very cheap relative to very small amounts of water a typical person would use. Quite a few countries like Israel already do it.
If you look at the surfaces around you, a lot of them are covered in concrete, or the topsoil is scraped flat to lay foundations for housing, etc. Areas of farmland are tilled and repeatedly have plants growing/pulled up, which takes nutrients away and loosens the structure even more/leaves it vulnerable to being washed away in rain. Compare that to a forest where large root and mycelium (fungal) structures are maintained over the years, holding the soil in place like a sponge and building it as more leaves fall/plants die and their roots rot. We are projected to run out of usable top soil by 2050-its one of the more unsexy issues we are facing as a society. Topsoil holds tons of water and it keeps it in place and keeps underground reservoirs level. If we fuck up the top soil, we fuck up the reservoirs! So that’s why ecological farming practices (no dog, permaculture, etc) are so important, and why /r/nolawn is the shit.
Edit: this is just one piece of the puzzle, many factors contribute.
Here’s a cool water conscious desert dweller:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DKcAMXm9zITg&ved=2ahUKEwjWzfPwzpaBAxUql2oFHagJDh4QwqsBegQIFBAG&usg=AOvVaw0ZIOsxuDLGdIXlIQlnHui3
The water cycle works on a planetary scale, and sometimes on smaller local scales, but isn’t guaranteed to work for any given locale.
For instance, in the San Francisco Bay Area, we get water from melting snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Treated sewage, runoff, and unused water flow into the ocean, where it is carried away. Maybe it gets turned into rain in Hawaii or something, but we’ll never see it again. The ocean is too cold and the currents too fast.
In a place like Florida, the warm ocean is constantly “sweating” its water back into the air, making it humid, and every cold front sparks fresh rain.
Also, I’m not sure how much it matters, but there is the fact that California (for example) grows a lot of produce with local water, then ships that produce to other states. However that produce breaks down, the water released will probably never go into a sewer or drain in California.
So yeah, the water is conserved on a planetary scale, but unfortunately not always in the right place for whoever needs it.
This isn’t generally true. In some cases cities have grown too big for the amount of drinkable water in their vicinity. But in most places this is a non-issue.
I think it’s perceived as a general issue because some really big American cities are built in very dry places.
Even if the amount of water stays constant, we need more water all the time due to population growth and overconsumption.
It also takes a heck of a lot of effort to get clean water where people need it. Water treatment plants, pipes running to every building in a city, water mains, valves, and pumps by the thousands.
Earth doesn’t run out of water. Local places on earth do.
The earth’s total water system is not losing (many) water molecules naturally. Rust is changing water into hydrogen/oxygen. some plants do it naturally. But this amount is not noticeable and has been happening for billions of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting Earth might be able to make new water in its core. And when you digest sugar, you exhale 3 molecules of water https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/has-there-been-new-water-created-world-began#:~:text=So%2C%20there’s%20lots%20of%20water,new%20ones%20all%20the%20time.
Local places on earth run out of water: this is what you hear about in the news. Like the Colorado river that starts in Colorado USA, and feeds a huge region in the south west USA. That river is running out of water because it is being used to feed hungry cities in a desert region and it doesn’t have enough to supply the whole amount of people. Or it hasn’t gotten enough rain in its area.
But the Missouri and Mississipi rivers don’t run out (yet). Everyone living around those has plenty of water.
This is a map of the regions of water rivers in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resource_region
Each region is actually a tree of rivers/creeks/lakes that feeds the main exit river of the region. So if your city is up high on the river tree, you might have less water than your region does on average.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_rivers_of_the_United_States_(by_main_stem)#/media/File:Mississippiriver-new-01.png
When rain falls on these regions, it eventually feeds the exit river, by falling down the tree of creeks/rivers until it hits the main trunk.
some regions don’t get much rain, either temporarily(drought) or never got much rain. Some regions rivers are being over used by the people/companies in that region.
Local places in a good region might have issues also. The further you are away from a main river and the higher altitude, the lower you have to dig a well to hit ground water. You might live in a valley that gets less rain than the neighbor valley, even tho you both are next to the same main river
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